copyright 2007 Patti Henry

June is the month that has one of the most important holidays in the year: Father’s Day. I say this not because it’s a day when we get to say thank you and I love you to our fathers, but because it’s a day to reflect on the importance of fathering.

We are in a fathering crisis in our country. We have men who have become fathers, but don’t know how to father. We have men who are fathers who never got the fathering they needed from their own fathers. We have women who have become mothers who discount the fathering role. We have a divorce court system that discounts the fathering role. We have thousands and thousands of fathers overseas away from their families fighting a war or trying to rebuild a country leaving their families at home fatherless. We have 10.4 million children living in single parent families where the mother is the head of household. We have fathers who live with their families but don’t lead. We have fathers who defer all the family decisions to their wives, and even remain silent when abuse occurs. We have thousands of fathers who abandon their parental rights every year. We have fathers who were taught as little boys to cut off from their emotions (the big boys don’t cry message) who now, as adults, don’t know how to emotionally connect with their children – and who are giving their boys the same destructive directive: suck it up. We have millions of children growing up in fatherless homes either emotionally or literally. We are, indeed, in a fathering crisis.

That is why my belief is: we must heal men to heal the world.

Men, if you have children, you are critical in the balance needed to raise them into emotionally healthy, compassionate, productive adults. Period. No exceptions. Your part is vital.

What do your children need from you? What I have observed in 20 years of practice and research is that boys and girls seem to need different things from their fathers.

Boys are looking to you to offer them, what I call, The Path. They are looking for guidance to know what steps to take and in what order. They need you to help them walk the path from youth through adolescence into young adulthood into becoming a man. They need you to help them build skills at each level that can be deepened as the years go by. The Path is rather like mathematics. First children learn the numbers and their values; then addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division; then comes algebra followed by geometry and trigonometry, all leading up to calculus. Learning each level is critical to be able to do the next higher functioning level. So it is with The Path: boys need help moving from simple skills to the complex. They are hungering for your leadership and wisdom both concretely and emotionally, your trust in them, and your approval of them. They need you to teach them by taking the time to talk to them, seeing their interests, doing things with them, and showing them how to do new things. They need you to invest time and energy in them daily, weekly, monthly, yearly.

I had a client who was able to describe all the guidance he had received from his father in one sentence: "When I went on my first date when I was 14, my father flipped me a condom and told me not to get her pregnant." At 42, this client was still scrambling trying to figure out how to be a man. He didn’t get what he needed from his father.

I had a client whose father mowed the lawn behind him – after he had already done it. This man spent his lifetime desperately seeking others’ approval. He didn’t get what he needed from his father.

I had a client who watched as his father sat idly by when his mother whipped the boys with switches until they bled. He was never able to "commit" in a relationship. He didn’t get what he needed from his father.

I had a client whose father wanted to be his best friend, and guilted him when he wanted to do something with his friends, or even date. This man grew up pushing people away, trying to get some "space." He didn’t get what he needed from his father either.

Fathers, your boys need you. They need you to show them the way. And, they need you to be the man you want them to become: honest, in integrity, able to know right from wrong, able to love deeply, able to be successful financially, able to walk through fear, able to live transparently, able to have personal power and humility, able to contribute to the world, and able to have an authentic self.

Now, with your little girls, you are no less important. They, in general, will not need you to show them The Path to becoming a woman, however. They will need a woman to help them with that. Girls come to their fathers more because they need their self-worth solidified. A girl needs her father to make it clear that she is loved and loveable. She needs to know that you find her important and capable. She needs to hear from you boundaries: that she should never accept poor treatment in a relationship personally or in business. Most importantly, she needs to see that role-modeled. That is, she must see you love your partner. How can she believe that you love and respect her when you don’t love and respect her mother?

Also, fathers need to be emotionally present for their daughters – and not abandoning. One of the biggest problems I see with female clients in regards to their fathers is emotional and/or literal abandonment from them. The father was maybe a workaholic or traveled a lot for work. Maybe he came home but never talked. Maybe he just watched sports on TV. Also, so many of my female clients have reported a close relationship with their father until they went through puberty. Then, because of their sexuality, their fathers seemed to "dump them." This, of course, sets the daughter up for a lifetime of dating and marrying men who will abandon her. Fathers need to stick with their fathering – with clear sexual boundaries – throughout their daughter’s teen years. They need to talk to them, listen, and be emotionally available to them. Daughters need to know from their fathers: Am I loveable? Am I more than my appearance? Do you think I’m capable? Do you respect me? Am I good enough?

One last thing, fathers, both genders, of course, need to see you as a successful adult. You are role-modeling every minute you are in front of them.

So how do you become an adult and a better father if those skills were not given to you? Here are some suggestions:

If you do, you’ll be changing the world for generations to come. You are invaluable as a father. Happy Father’s Day.